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failures, resulting in actual harm or death to animals.”^48 However,
the offi ce waived the requirement following Katrina because of
the severity of the storm and the scattering of LSU staff across the
country.
Attempts by animal advocates to hold someone accountable
highlight the contrasting meanings of animals in laboratories. As
earlier outlined, researchers are committed to a paradigm that incor-
porates the use of animals in their experiments. Their justifi cation
is essentially threefold: humans and nonhuman animals are biologi-
cally similar; because we cannot experiment on humans, we should
use animals as models; the benefi ts to human beings are worth the
suffering and deaths of any number of animals. From this view,
any attempt to curtail the use of animals would impede research
and compromise the quality of human life. Put on the defensive,
the research community proclaims that “all science is excellent and
some is especially so.”^49 Researchers depict the opposition as mis-
informed, unscientifi c, sentimental, trivial, and holding unrealis-
tic views about how research operates. They portray groups such
as PETA as having misplaced priorities, valuing animals more than
human beings. In contrast, animal advocates paint all researchers
with the same brush and see only exaggeration, fl awed science, and
immorality.
The defenders of animal experimentation maintain that the
practice plays a critical and indispensable role in improving the
quality of human life. Its opponents, and some historians of med-
icine, claim that the defenders have exaggerated its benefi ts. For
example, the American Medical Association credits animal research
with extending the human life-span by helping to conquer numer-
ous major childhood diseases, such as smallpox, diphtheria, scar-
let fever, whooping cough, and measles. Medical historians note,
however, that the decline in mortality from these diseases occurred
before treatments and vaccinations were developed.^50 With many
diseases, such as pneumonia and even cancer, preventive measures
have reduced mortality more signifi cantly than have interventions
drawn from animal research.^51 Opponents also argue that research
on animals has had a much less signifi cant role than its defenders